Houston Rockets: Projecting the starting five for 2017-18

Shooting Guard

James Mother Effin’ Beard Harden. He’s the best shooting guard in the NBA and the rightful MVP. No amount of skewed or betrayed reasoning in the voting will ever change that. Harden is a 29 point per game assist machine who helped lead one of the best offensive performances in NBA history while drawing comparisons to NBA legends with his performance.

I’m a James Harden jock rider and I owe no one an apology for it.

James has been putting in work this offseason to maintain his health. It appears he’s found a regimen to keep himself fit, strong, and durable. That’s great news for Houston Rockets fans considering last year could be viewed as a fluke if Houston finds the injury bug this year. While I predicted in a previous article that Harden would miss time due to injury, it looks like he’s worked on his body to prove me wrong. You’re welcome, Houston.

What to watch out for?

Turnovers. We say a lot about how prolific passers turn the ball over. James Harden is in another stratosphere. For reference, Chris Paul committed 147 turnovers en route to 563 assists last year. Harden gave up 464 while tallying 907. Even scaling for numbers, that’s pretty disparate.

Now, pace definitely accounts for some of it, but Harden will have to cut back on turnovers for this experiment to work next to Paul as Paul’s numbers are likely to rise in Houston as well. Houston’s offense will be explosive but it would need to be nuclear to outpace giving up that many possessions.